242 J.-A. PEMBERTON
his preference would be for a smaller and more informal gathering. In
concluding his response, he stated that he ‘saw no need for an interna-
tional secretariat.’^6
Vera Micheles Dean was a prominent figure in the Foreign Policy
Association and, according to a memorandum sent to Walker, was editor of
its periodical Foreign Policy Bulletin. Dean, who was also involved with the
GRC, complained to Walker that at the conference she had had to endure
too many formal speeches of an ‘intellectually sterile’ nature. She stated
that because of the extent of the speechifying, there was insufficient time
to discuss ‘living issues of international relations.’ One of Dean’s recom-
mendations was that in the future such conferences should be held, ‘not in
world capitals like London or Paris where there are too many distractions,
but in some quiet spot’ which would permit more informal discussion.
In this regard she pointed to the success of the Williamstown Institute
in Massachusetts and the recent Yosemite conference of the IPR. Walker
would have been well aware of the success of the Yosemite conference as
she had attended it as a member of the American delegation. Indeed, while
at Yosemite, she had served as of one of three rapporteurs for the following
round table topic: The Changing Balance of Political Forces in the Pacific
and the Possibilities of Peaceful Adjustment. Like the other American
respondents, Dean criticised the role of the IIIC in relation to the con-
ference, stating that the Paris institute was so swamped by other activities
that it could not effectively serve as the conference’s secretariat. She told
Walker that she thought that this accounted for the conference’s ‘slovenly’
character. Dean stated that in the future, conference preparations should
be entrusted to a small international committee with a permanent execu-
tive secretary, ‘preferably an American’.^7
Letters asking for opinions on the future direction of the ISC and
its relation to the IIIC had been sent to figures residing on the other
side of the Atlantic by the Rockefeller Foundation’s assistant director
of social sciences, namely, Kittredge. Among the respondents to these
(^6) C. K. Leith to Dr. Sydnor H. Walker, 2 October 1937, and memorandum of Vera
Micheles Dean sent to Dr. Sydnor H. Walker, AG-IICI-K-I-4.b, UA.
(^7) Copy of Memorandum sent by Vera Micheles Dean, Editor of Foreign Policy
Association, answering certain questions raised in Miss Walker’s letter to Mr. Allsberg
regarding the ISC, 2 October 1937, AG-IICI-K-I-4.b, UA. See also ‘Appendix 1:
Conference Membership and Committees,’ in Holland and Mitchell, eds., Problems of the
Pacific, 1936, 439, 441.